FRIDAY
The inaugural Celestial Darkness is the brainchild of the people behind Camden’s trve cvlt Cosmic Void festival, and if its brief is more eclectic, the culture of camaraderie is every bit as tangible, even more so when the crowd are unified in thrall to DORDEDUH. Forgoing the traditional Romanian instrumentation, the spiritualism that rises up sounds prismatic and newborn, a devoutly invoked cinematic sweep bolstered by Edmond Karban’s alternating far-flung and blackened vocals. EREB ALTOR’s sense of the epic is more conventional, blending blasts and mid-paced riffs to moderate effect, with Mats’ reedy, ICS Vortex-esque vocals putting wind in their sails.
On a more meditative bill PRIMORDIAL are the best chance at proper heavy metal rabble-rousing. An hour-long set leaves room for just uptempo songs, and a live spontaneity with little banter gives a real gung-ho drive throughout, brand new title track How It Ends a magnificent do-or-die bolstering to the brilliant As Rome Burns.
SATURDAY
With Schammasch forced to pull out, THE INFERNAL SEA are taking up the cowled, sartorial slack. Draped in not unfamiliar evil priest robes, there’s nothing occult or otherworldly about their old-school, black metal attack, but it’s a sturdy, celebratory start to the day. There’s agradual magic at work through ISOLE’s set, the Swedes transmuting stoicism into something epic, as Daniel Bryntse’s careworn yet resounding vocals turn classic metal and doom into a memorial for a bygone age.